Eastern Counties 1: Woodbridge Warriors 15 Mersea Island 18

MERSEA ISLAND’S pack was much the larger and quickly dominated with flankers, Goldring and Warner linking well with their backs.

This yielded an early missed penalty opportunity as the Warriors struggled to get possession.

With the game being played in the Woodbridge 22, it was only Mersea’s handling errors that prevented a score as defence was poor, before Woodbridge’s Dumbill scored a break-away, converted try.

Mersea reacted and eventually, poor tackling allowed giant prop Murrell to score and, shortly after, scrum-half Hallam and fly half Reddish launched Cook over to score number two.

Mersea then started to kick to clear which did give Woodbridge some more possession but runs from Biu and Webb were frustrated as play stayed too narrow.

The Mersea penalty count allowed Dumbill to take three points before half time.

Mersea missed a penalty at the restart, before Hallam scored a great individual try.

Woodbridge countered with pressure on the left – their pack, especially Cope, worked very hard and won a (missed) penalty in the corner.

Woodbridge kept moving the ball wider and threatened a couple of times but their opponents’ forwards were relentless and forced a penalty for their new substitute fly-half to take three more points.

Woodbridge ended the game with a try for Gray and Mersea had two players carded but it was too late.